Booking bikes on trains via Virgin East Coast website no longer possible?

[Bodhbh]

As per title. Many of you will know this was generally the most convenient way of booking a bike on a train, and saved you having to phone up before booking a ticket to check availability or afterwards and finding out there was none.

Anyhow I had a go at doing it just now and seems website has been revamped and the facility removed. I've complained directly and awaiting their response, but it is possible I've missed something in the redesign. Shame...glad I've got a folder....although a chunky one that's liable to block up the vesibule. Price of progress.

 

[vickster]

@jefmcg did this recently

 

[Bodhbh]

@jefmcg did this recently

This subject or booked a bike via Virgin website?

 

[vickster]

This subject or booked a bike via Virgin website?

Booked a bike on east coast. I think at a station though

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Booking at a mainline station is easy enough. They still have the freind,y guards van to put your bike in.

 

[ColinJ]

Booking at a mainline station is easy enough. They still have the freind,y guards van to put your bike in.

Not so handy if you live many miles from the station and you don't want to risk finding all the bike spaces taken when you get there!

I took TMN's advice and used Hull Trains to book tickets and make bike reservations for my most recent rail journeys with my bike. No problems at all ...

 

[User10119]

I tend to use the Trans-Pennine site if I'm booking a journey that requires a bike space, because they still do free first class postage of tickets.

 

[robjh]

As per title. Many of you will know this was generally the most convenient way of booking a bike on a train, and saved you having to phone up before booking a ticket to check availability or afterwards and finding out there was none.

Anyhow I had a go at doing it just now and seems website has been revamped and the facility removed. I've complained directly and awaiting their response, but it is possible I've missed something in the redesign. Shame...glad I've got a folder....although a chunky one that's liable to block up the vesibule. Price of progress.

You're absolutely right - I've just done a trial booking and there is no longer any way to book a bike through it, just some weasel words in the FAQ about calling their customer centre or going to a station. The b*stards.

I'm struggling to think why, in redesigning a system, the company would have given a spec for it to do less than the old one, particularly when the old one managed this facility perfectly well so we know that it is doable. I wonder if Virgin East Coast have switched the underlying booking system to the same one they use for the West Coast franchise, which has no bike booking facility. I believe from previous reading around that there are at least two different main booking systems, and I'm guessing that only one of them bothers with bikes.

 

[ianrauk]

Just more discouragement of those that cycle and wish to travel by train.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

Scotrail

 

[Blue Hills]

I may post later when more time and at the risk of boring folks with my many god awful experiences of booking trains on virgin west coast and now east coast.

But just a quick point - when these two numpty virgin companies have special seat sales those tickets are only available by booking online on their own web pages. So there is not the option of booking you and the bike in one go on one of those alternative web pages.

On my latest awful experience with east coast I couldn't even book the ticket at kings cross station, a "home" station for them when talking to a booking clerk wearing an east coast trains badge/uniform. I did eventually get a ticket for me and the bike peterborough to london for £5.80 but hell I earned it.

The staff on the trains are usually great.

The management and the web team should be tied to the tracks.

 

[jefmcg]

OK.

My recent experience, thanks to a free ticket from @theclaud , I needed a bike reservation to get back home. Virgin EC website didn't seem to offer any online option I could find, and referred me to their phone line. As they offered free wifi if you book your tickets via their website, I took that option. It took a couple of calls to get into the right phone queue, as cycle reservation wasn't in the description of any of the menu choices.

More, unasked for, detail:
It was a reasonably long call, with a few minutes on hold while they made the reservation. Despite asking me for an email address, I later found out they never email the bike reservations. Anyway, code didn't work in the machine at the my local station (SWT), so I called virgin again to confirm I had the right code and the right reservation. I did, and they gave me a second code to give to the ticket office at the station. The ticket seller spent several minutes fighting with software and eventually was able to print me out not my actual reservation, but a piece of paper saying I had one. Later I went to the machines at Edinburgh station, assuming they would print the tickets, but I got 3 different temporary errors from 3 different machines. Finally I joined a queue to speak face to face to a ECV person. It only took him a couple of minutes finally print out my reservation.

TL;DR: It took about 2 hours actively making the bicycle reservation, not including travel time to 2 different stations.

 

[Bodhbh]

Okay great, Hully Gully rail and Scotrail still allow it then.

 

[Bodhbh]

I'm struggling to think why, in redesigning a system, the company would have given a spec for it to do less than the old one, particularly when the old one managed this facility perfectly well so we know that it is doable. I wonder if Virgin East Coast have switched the underlying booking system to the same one they use for the West Coast franchise, which has no bike booking facility. I believe from previous reading around that there are at least two different main booking systems, and I'm guessing that only one of them bothers with bikes.

I don't really understand the mechanics, but at surface appeace it seems daft to downgrade the booking system - especially as it's liable to create more work and inconvenience for both staff and customers.

OK.

My recent experience, thanks to a free ticket from @theclaud , I needed a bike reservation to get back home. Virgin EC website didn't seem to offer any online option I could find, and referred me to their phone line. As they offered free wifi if you book your tickets via their website, I took that option. It took a couple of calls to get into the right phone queue, as cycle reservation wasn't in the description of any of the menu choices.

More, unasked for, detail:
It was a reasonably long call, with a few minutes on hold while they made the reservation. Despite asking me for an email address, I later found out they never email the bike reservations. Anyway, code didn't work in the machine at the my local station (SWT), so I called virgin again to confirm I had the right code and the right reservation. I did, and they gave me a second code to give to the ticket office at the station. The ticket seller spent several minutes fighting with software and eventually was able to print me out not my actual reservation, but a piece of paper saying I had one. Later I went to the machines at Edinburgh station, assuming they would print the tickets, but I got 3 different temporary errors from 3 different machines. Finally I joined a queue to speak face to face to a ECV person. It only took him a couple of minutes finally print out my reservation.

TL;DR: It took about 2 hours actively making the bicycle reservation, not including travel time to 2 different stations.

Well this perfectly illustrates the problems of separate phone reservations, what should be a 5-10min checking availability yourself and plumping for a whatever service is most suitable, turns into a saga of phone calls and visits to the station, causing a load of stress and wasting your time and that of the staff.

 

[User10119]

I thought all the providers did that? Not that I've checked them all, but Southern certainly do.

I tend to use TPE/Virgin - mostly because the trains I get are mostly those TOCs and you occasionally get further online discounts/bonuses by booking direct from the relevant train company. Historically the East Coast website was easy to use, had a useful cheapest fares finder, allowed bike bookings and did free delivery. The latter disappeared a while ago (possibly when Virgin got the franchise?) and at some point during LEL the moved to their new website which meant the bike booking disappeared too.

TPE used to have the easiest to use search - their mixing desk just works. They've hidden it a bit now.